The Leader Board Issue #2

Welcome to the second issue of The Leader Board. This is where you will find important learnings we have gathered while delivering leadership advisory services to our clients.

Plan – The power of staffing strategically

You have a business plan. Do you have a staffing plan? A staffing plan is a key management tool to improving the quality of employee performance at every level of your business. One thing is certain. The benefits of adopting a staffing plan far outweigh the time spent devising it. With a plan you can:

Standardize hiring decisions.

Hire the right people more consistently.

Support management development.

Reduce hiring costs.

Limit your liability.

Your plan should be as unique as your logo.

The staffing model that you and your firm create should reflect the nuances of your industry and your organization. But every effective plan should include:

Defining the ideal candidate

Attracting qualified candidates

Screening the candidates

Documenting hiring decision making

Just like your business plan. A staffing plan is only as good as the commitment your staff gives to it. Once you develop it, you have to ensure that your human resource managers embrace, adopt and effectively use your strategic staffing plan.

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Attract – How would you answer these 5 questions about recruiting talent?

Your top performers deserve your support, too. Sure. You can identify which of your staff are the rock stars. The ones who embrace your company’s vision. Achieve what they set their mind to. Inspire others to perform. You have a lot to gain by helping them grow even stronger. And here’s now:

First find out what makes them tick. Your top performers may have personal goals that are different than your business plan. Before you pour resources developing these employees, be sure that your objectives match.

Send them on a mission quest. Intense, challenging, and risky assignments can be the best way to grow leadership capabilities. Help rising stars train for the stressful situations they will face in future roles.

Offer more than on-the-job training. There’s no replacement for the classroom. Seminars, activities, and instruction are a necessary supplement to leadership development initiatives.

Give formal feedback fast and often. Your best employees aren’t going to grow through casual conversations once or twice a year. Make sure you provide direction, guidance, and coaching on new tasks and development opportunities.

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Retain – Employees are like customers. It’s better to keep them than find them.

Here are the top five reasons you want to keep your employees happy and productive. With so much effort put into to planning for, attracting, and developing great performers it can be easy to forget why it’s so important to retain them and how much strain that takes off the entire staffing process:

Today’s employees are ready to work. It took significant time and energy to make your staff as productive as they are today. You don’t want to start from scratch too often.

You know what they know. And you don’t want your competitors knowing it. When your ex-employees take new jobs their knowledge of your operations go with them.

You created a family. Employees who work together long-term learn from each other, can help each other be more effective, often without even realizing it. This takes time to recreate.

Client’s notice. Your ability to provide a positive work environment is important to your clients. To say nothing of the relationships between your clients and employees who might leave.

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VIP EXECUTIVE BREAKFAST

We cordially invite you to join us at Oak Hill Country Club on October 26th, 2016 from 8-9:30 AM for a highly interactive breakfast that explores building high-performance teams and organizations.

This executive briefing provides a rare, off-the-record look at how companies, both global players and mid-sized organizations, have reinvented the way they operate to achieve standout performance. Led by renowned management consultant and author Howard M. Guttman, this session offers practical insights into how senior executives have moved their organizations from lackluster silo structures to high-performance, horizontal management teams. In the process, these high-performing, horizontal organizations have become fiercely competitive entities capable of producing rapid results and lasting value.

This executive briefing will isolate the key “musts” for driving up performance and will challenge your thinking about the management fundamentals, from leadership and accountability to decision making and conflict resolution. You’ll come away with fresh insight and a dynamic approach to achieving ever-higher levels of results from the executive suite to key teams throughout your organization.

CCY is committed to helping regional organizations thrive and reach their full potential. We look forward to bringing together top Rochester area executives for an uninterrupted session focused on developing agile and adaptive teams.

About Howard M. Guttman

Howard M. Guttman is principal of Guttman Development Strategies, Inc., (guttmandev.com), a Mount Arlington, New Jersey-based management consulting firm founded in 1989 and specializing in building horizontal, high-performance teams; leadership-team alignment; leadership coaching; and leadership development. GDS has been ranked as a top Leadership Development consulting firm by Leadership Excellence magazine, which also named Mr. Guttman to its list of “Excellence 100 Top Thought Leaders.” Among GDS’s U.S. and international corporate clients are GlaxoSmithKline; Johnson & Johnson; Keurig Green Mountain; Mars, Inc.; Pinnacle Foods Group; Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and Walmart. Mr. Guttman is the author of Great Business Teams: Cracking the Code for Standout Performance; When Goliaths Clash: Managing Executive Conflict to Build a More Dynamic Organization; and Coach Yourself to Win: 7 Steps to Breakthrough Performance on the Job and in Your Life. Mr. Guttman is the author of many articles, including “Are Your Global Team Members Miles Apart,” which appeared in The Harvard Business Review.